With the financial markets already primed for a 25-basis-point cut at next week’s Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting, the talk has now shifted to the possibility that the Fed may go even further and reduce its benchmark federal funds rate by 50 basis points instead.
That speculation was fueled by New York Fed President John Williams, who exhorted an audience of the Central Bank Research Association in New York last week to “take swift action when faced with adverse economic conditions” and “keep interest rates lower for longer” when reducing rates.
“Don’t keep your powder dry—that is, move more quickly to add monetary stimulus than you otherwise might,” he added, which may have left some listeners wondering what year this was – 2008, when the Great Recession was just beginning, or 2019 when the economy is still growing. Either way, listeners on Wall Street were happy to hear it and immediately pushed stock prices higher.
The New York Fed subsequently walked back Williams’s comments, saying that he didn’t mean to suggest that the Fed was about to double-down on a rate increase next week, downplaying his comments as an “academic speech” and “not about potential policy actions at the upcoming FOMC meeting.”
But Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida swiftly echoed Williams’ comments, telling the Fox Business Network, “You don’t wait until the data turns decisively if you can afford to. If you need to [cut rates], you don’t need to wait until things get so bad to have a dramatic series of rate cuts.”
The only difference is that Williams described the economy as “pretty strong” – begging the question why the Fed feels it needs to lower rates at all, whether by 25 or 50 basis points – while Clarida implied that the economy is ready to hurtle over the cliff unless the Fed rides to the rescue.
Along comes Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren with a different take. Continue reading "One Lump Or Two?"
